Find Me At:

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

A Few Notes about Movies

Last Friday, Brynna and I went to see Shrek: Forever After. It was delightful. No really! I'm serious! Here are a few reflections on the movie watching experience:

Movie:
I'm not going to do a big movie review here, but I will say that I think this movie is truly made for parents. In case you live under a rock and haven't heard all about the premise 10 million times, I'll share. Shrek is living the dream, house full of kids, playdates with the donkey-dragons, oohed and ahhed at by tour wagons. And he starts to feel a little wistful for the old days. The days when people were scared of him, when he could do anything he wanted, when he was free.

If you are a parent and you can't sympathize with this to some degree, you are probably a psychopath. Or possibly a liar.

Anyway, I get it. And so he makes a wish and yadda, yadda. Be careful what you wish for.

Except that wasn't the part that got me. The part that got me was Fiona. See, since she wasn't rescued by Shrek: SPOILERS AHEAD: she rescued her damn self. She is now a warrior ogre, leading a resistance of beaten down and abused ogres.

And that. Stopped me. Of course, I know that I am the result of my history, the product of my past. If things had gone differently for me, I'd be different. If I hadn't married The Husband, had my girls, where would I be? Would I be some warrior goddess, hair streaming in the wind, fighting for justice and truth?

I don't know, really. I can't know. And I'm okay with that. I may complain about my life a lot. I may feel like I lost my way, career wise. I may be working toward changing all that. But I don't for a second regret any of it.

For the record, neither did Fiona.

I am in love with my children. In awe of them. I cannot begin to imagine being without them. Yeah, I want me-time every once in a while. I would love to go to the grocery store with neither one of them in tow. I like a little peace and quiet and the hour or so after bedtime is one of my favorite times of day.

But... My other favorite time of day is riding around in the car with them, watching TV with them, sitting down to dinner with them. These are my girls, my life and I can't imagine it being any different.

But I do wonder if the warrior me does exist somewhere, on another plane, another dimension. If she is fighting the good fight, breaking down walls and changing the world.

I don't regret who I am or where I am, but sometimes, I envy her just the same.
__________________________________

Previews:

I love the previews. They are sometimes my favorite part. But I am so tired of three words: "In eyepopping 3D!" In the first place, after you have seen your first 3D extravaganza, it's not that eyepopping. In the second place, OH MY HEAVENS, HOLLYWOOD, BUY A FREAKIN' THESAURUS!!! Sorry. Just a thing I have.
___________________________________

Tickets:

Why is seeing a movie in 3D so much more expensive? Here's my suggestion. I think theaters should charge the same amount as for regular movies and NOT give you the glasses. That's right, don't hand 'em out. Instead, SELL the glasses. Make them a wee bit nicer than the ones they have now and let you buy a pair. Then, you bring them back with you.

This is assuming the increase in cost is to cover the glasses. If it's equipment, then that should really not cost $2.50 per person, per movie for the rest of time. In fact, I don't think it should cost anything, because that is the cost of doing business, maintaining and updating equipment. Of course, those costs are incorporated into what you charge your customers, but there is no reason to go overboard with it.

If it's just because people will pay it to see a movie in 3D, then, well, you're probably right. But I won't. I'm eventually going to get bored and only want to see the biggest, loudest action movies IN EYE POPPING 3D and I'll see everything else like Goldwyn and Mayer intended, in eye flattening 2D.
____________________________

Popcorn:

Can someone please tell me when we stopped buttering popcorn and giving it a toss halfway through. This is the correct way to serve buttered movie theater popcorn. 1 scoop in the bucket, followed by a couple of pumps of butter, a little toss and shake, the rest of the bucket, a couple more pumps of butter. No toss at the end because for $5, that bucket better be brimming.

The last couple times I've been to the theater, my popcorn on top has been soggy with butter and then an inch into it, no butter. Evil. Evil. Evil, lazy teenagers employed by butter-hording conglomerates.

I think my son saw this with his big brother, I don't remember. They go to so many movies, it's hard for me to keep up.

As for Fiona rescuing herself, I wonder the same thing all. the. time. What if? What it I hadn't gotten pregnant and dropped out of college the first time around? Would I have graduated, moved to NYC and tried to get on the Great White Way? What would life be like? But I also can't imagine I'd still be alive today if it weren't for my son. Words can't express how much I love that boy (no matter how much he exasperates me at the same time).

We quit eating movie theatre popcorn before Jamie got his braces. He's not supposed to have any popcorn, period, so we quit ahead of time so he'd be used to it.

By raising children, you give yourself a good chance to be "fighting the good fight, breaking down walls and changing the world".

I took a mass communications class in college that taught me that the reason popcorn and other things are so expensive in the theaters is that is how the theater gets revenue, that it gets very very little from the ticket sales. So I guess the money from the 3D tickets go to the producers, etc, and the money from the poorly buttered popcorn goes to the theater. And I think I saw my teacher on the flight back from San Antonio. I recognized his hair. Didn't talk to him. Doubt he would've remembered me. But I remember ol' Ferrel. (And those are probably the only two things I can remember from that class. The popcorn thing and the teacher's name.)